WHAT WE CAN DO WITH OUR PRIVILEGE?

A word from Achvat Director, Yoav Peck:

As winter arrives, I have a good feeling about my wood pile, outside in the garden. I have collected, over time, enough heavy branches to enable the security that I will have enough wood this winter, even if the winter is extraordinarily harsh.

This is not the case in al-Shati Camp tonight, on the edge of Gaza City, beside the sea. There is no security in Shati. The army notified the residents of al-Shati on Thursday that they must evacuate to the South. Again. Aside from the inability to see the suffering of the Palestinians, most Israelis are convinced that we must ride the recent wave of military successes. To where? The reason to maintain a strong army is to see to it that we do NOT have to fight.

We Israelis have got it all wrong. We think that if we are strong, we will be safer. And yet, lurking beneath the surface is our awareness that military power can only get us safer, but it cannot get us safe. And deep down, we also understand that we cannot be safe until ALL of us are.

So is there a way to get all of us safe, and soon? This is the wrong question. There may not ever be “A WAY” that will lead us home to peace. However, there certainly are “WAYS” to peace, a multitude of ways to peace, many roads leading to Rome. To home. I just arrived back in Jerusalem after traveling one of them.

I got to be with twelve young folks in their 20’s, traveling the south of Israel/Palestine for four days and three nights. This current cohort of Achvat Amim, met with a plethora of players and stakeholders.

Participants at a Tatreez workshop in Rahat 

We stayed with our friends in Umm al Khair in their village in the South Hebron hills, with a settlement towering over them fifty yards away.

Tour and Talk with Bashir Al-Ziyadna

We heard a fascinating Bedouin law student and activist, Bashir, whose relatives are among the hostages in Gaza. An Israeli professor of Moroccan origin brought us into the story of Israel’s 50 year discrimination toward them, the struggle of the Israeli Black Panthers, the ongoing battle for a deeper cultural equality between mizrahim and ashkenazim.

Talk with Avi Dabush

Sunday morning we heard Avi Dabush, the head of Rabbis for Human Rights. Avi’s power is in his focus on what there is to be done in our Land, to bring us closer to the realization of our values. Inspiring us as he shared his way: Identifying a need, answering that need with action

Tour of Be’er Sheva with Yossi Mukeiton

At Achvat, we place our participants in various peace/human rights orgs. One of our cohort goes out several times a week to pick olives alongside West Bank farmers, to try to deter harassment from marauding settlers or aggressive soldiers. Action, taking action.
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At the moment, when we all seem to be helpless in the face of the political/military reality, we revive our spirits when we look to what we CAN do to advance things. Achvat Amim enables in-depth learning, activism in the field. A myriad of other projects, in civil society, are taking small, incremental steps forward. A beehive of decency and solidarity, somehow laying the human infrastructure for the peace that inevitably will come.
What else can we do?

Solidarity, 
Yoav